System and method for XML data representation of portlets

ABSTRACT

An Extensible Markup Language (XML) document adapted to describe a portlet, comprising a name element including a name tag, a description element including a description tag, and a content resource element including a content tag.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

[0001] This application claims priority from ENHANCED PORTALS [FLAGSTAFFRELEASE], U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/386,487, Inventors: PhilGriffin, et al., filed on Oct. 24, 2001, and which is incorporatedherein by reference.

CROSS REFERENCES

[0002] This application is related to the following co-pendingapplications which are each hereby incorporated by reference in theirentirety: SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PORTAL RENDERING, Inventors: PhilGriffin, et al., filed on ______; SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RULE-BASEDENTITLEMENTS, U.S. application Ser. No. ______, Inventors: Phil Griffin,et al., filed on ______.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

[0003] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document containsmaterial which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright ownerhas no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patentdocument or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent andTrademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves allcopyright rights whatsoever.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

[0004] The present invention disclosure relates to persisting portletconfiguration information, and in particular, representing portletconfiguration information as an Extensible Markup Language (XML)document.

BACKGROUND

[0005] A portal is a point of access to data and applications thatprovides a unified and personalized view of information and resources.Typically, a portal is implemented as one or more pages on a website. Inaddition to web content, portals provide the ability to displayportlets—self-contained applications or content. A portlet hasconfiguration information associated with it that determines how theportlet's graphical user interface (GUI) is rendered and to what extenta user can interact with the GUI. Generally speaking, such configurationinformation can be stored in a proprietary database accessible only by aWeb server or specialized tools. However, this can limit a user'sability to modify and distribute such data. What is needed is a standardway to represent portlet configuration information so that a portlet canbe manipulated and rendered by non propriety tools.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0006]FIG. 1 is an exemplary portal GUI in accordance to one embodimentof the invention.

[0007]FIG. 2 is an exemplary diagram of a portlet GUI in accordance toone embodiment of the invention.

[0008]FIG. 3 is diagram of a system in accordance to one embodiment ofthe invention.

[0009]FIG. 4 is diagram of a portal rendering system and method inaccordance to one embodiment of the invention.

[0010]FIG. 5 is diagram of a portlet rendering system and method inaccordance to one embodiment of the invention.

[0011]FIG. 6 is an Extensible Markup Language (XML) portlet document inaccordance to one embodiment of the invention.

[0012]FIG. 7 is an XML Schema Definition (XSD) in accordance to oneembodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0013] The invention is illustrated by way of example and not by way oflimitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which likereferences indicate similar elements. It should be noted that referencesto “an” or “one” embodiment in this disclosure are not necessarily tothe same embodiment, and such references mean at least one.

[0014]FIG. 1 is an exemplary portal GUI in accordance to one embodiment.In one embodiment, by way of illustration, a portal can be implementedas one or more pages on a website. Such pages can be implemented usingHypertext Markup Language (HTML), or other programming languages, so asto be render-able by a commercial web browser. One such browser isMicrosoft Internet Explorer, available from Microsoft, Corp. of Redmond,Wash. Portal pages can integrate many elements, such as live data feeds,static information and multimedia presentations. Portal page selectiontabs 100-104 can each be selected by a user to render a different pagewithin the portal. Portal pages can be thought of as panels or panesthat are swapped into and out of a display region of the availableportal real estate. If the “stocks” tab 100 were selected, for example,the corresponding portal page would be rendered. By way of a nonlimiting example, selection of a portal element can be accomplished withan input device such as a mouse, a motion detector, a voice command, ahand or eye gesture, etc. Although tabs 100-104 in FIG. 1 are displayedhorizontally, in another embodiment the tabs could be displayedvertically or using some other scheme. In yet another embodiment, tabs100-104 could be rendered as buttons or as other kinds of interactivecontrols. A portal page can also include other elements, such as aheader 112 and a footer 114 that can serve to provide additionalinformation or act as a unifying graphical element.

[0015] A portal page can include portlets. In one embodiment, a portletis an application that can manage its own GUI within the portal GUI. Inone embodiment, a portlet is implemented as a JavaServer Page™ (JSP).JSP's are part of the Java™ standard available from Sun Microsystems,Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif. In FIG. 1, by way of a non limiting example,there are three portlets: American Stock Exchange 106, New York StockExchange 108 and London Stock Exchange 110. Each portlet could displayinformation such as stock prices updated in real time for each exchange.A user might be able to configure such portlets to display only stocksof interest. In another embodiment, the user could select a given stockdisplayed in portlet 106, 108 or 110 and receive more detailedinformation, such as the price history, price to earnings ratio, etc.Likewise, selection of the “bonds” tab 102 could render a bonds pagehaving portlets for displaying bond information.

[0016]FIG. 2 is an exemplary diagram of a portlet GUI in accordance toone embodiment of the invention. In one embodiment by way of example, aportlet can have a title bar 204 and associated title bar icon 202. Thetitle bar 204 can be used to identify the portlet or the portlet'scontent. A portlet can also have display areas: banner area 206, headerarea 208, content area 210, and footer area 212. The banner, header andfooter areas can be used to display status messages, graphics or can beused to render user-selectable GUI controls such as buttons, drop downmenus, etc. The content area 210 is where a portlet renders its content.Help icon 200 can be used to display help information when selected.

[0017] In one embodiment, a portal page such as in FIG. 1 can bedescribed with a layout (hereinafter referred to as a “template”). Atemplate can specify the location of elements on a portal page. Atemplate can include one or more placeholders which define regions ofthe template wherein a portlet can render itself, or wherein otherstatic or dynamic content can be rendered. A given placeholder can hostmore than one portlet. In such a case, the template area occupied by theplaceholder could be shared amongst the portlets in a number of ways,including but not limited to stacking portlets on top of one another(not shown). In another embodiment, a template can be implemented as aHypertext Markup Language (HTML) table and created with conventionalHTML editors. Each cell in a such a table can represent a placeholder.Placeholders can be dynamically bound to portlet GUI's during portalpage rendering. In one embodiment, this can be accomplished by insertingdirectives to initiate portlet execution, such as JSP tag library calls,in the HTML table cells representing placeholders.

[0018]FIG. 3 is diagram of a system in accordance to one embodiment ofthe invention. Although this diagram depicts objects as functionallyseparate, such depiction is merely for illustrative purposes. It will beapparent to those skilled in the art that the objects portrayed in FIG.3 can be arbitrarily combined or divided into separate software,firmware or hardware components. Furthermore, it will also be apparentto those skilled in the art that such objects, irregardless of how theyare combined or divided, can execute on the same computer or can bearbitrarily distributed among different computers connected by anetwork.

[0019] In one embodiment, by way of illustration, client 300 can rendera portal by delegating the work to a hierarchy of JSP's wherein one JSPrenders parts of its GUI by invoking other JSP's. Client 300 can be aweb browser, for example. However, client 300 may be any software,firmware or hardware capable of communicating with server 302. In oneembodiment, server 302 can be any web server having a Java™ run-timeenvironment and support for JSP, such as the BEA WebLogic Server™,available from BEA Systems, Inc. of San Jose, Calif.

[0020] JSP's separate GUI functionality on a client from applicationlogic executing on a server, thereby enabling users to easily change aGUI without having to alter underlying application logic. Generallyspeaking, a JSP includes a page file that contains traditional HTML andJava™, but has a “.jsp” file name extension rather than “.html”. The“.jsp” extension indicates to server 302 that the file contains embeddeddirectives to invoke special JSP processing within server 302. Forexample, consider the following JSP page: <%@page import=“java.util.*”%> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>JSP Date Example</TITLE> </HEAD> <CENTER><H2>Today's Date is:</H2> <%= new Date() %> </CENTER> </BODY> </HTML>

[0021] Embedded in the HTML code above are statements expressly forprocessing by a JSP engine (not shown) in server 302. For example, thescriplet code fragment “new Date ( )” is delimited by the specialsymbols “<%=” and “%>”. When the JSP page is invoked by client 300, itwill be processed and executed on server 302 by the JSP engine, whereasthe HTML code will be processed and executed on client 300. The abovescriplet creates a new instance of the Date class on server 302 andreturns the current date as a string to client 300, which is thendisplayed by client 300:

[0022] Today's Date is:

[0023] Tues July 05 13:34:33 PDT 2002

[0024] In one embodiment, when client 300 invokes a JSP page, web server302 compiles the page into a servlet and spawns it as a running process.A servlet is a process deployed in a web server. Any dynamic output ofthe servlet is sent back to client 300 as a response. Processing of JSPcode within the web server may also result in the inclusion (andinvocation) of other JSP files via the <jsp:include> or similardirective.

[0025]FIG. 4 is diagram of a portal rendering system and method inaccordance to one embodiment of the invention. In one embodiment by wayof illustration, each box in the diagram having a file name thereinrepresents a JSP page. The arrows beneath the boxes represent executionflow from one JSP page to another via JSP include directives. index.jsp400 is the entry point for the portal web page. It forwards the web pagerequest to the main portal JSP page, portal.jsp 402. portal.jsp 402 isresponsible for rendering the portal and its contents. As such, it mustacquire various information needed for this endeavor. In one embodiment,portal.jsp 402 retrieves such information via calls to a tag libraryesp.tld which can be part of controller 304. esp.tld includes JSP tagsfor communicating with portal manager 306. Portal manager 306 isresponsible for retrieving and persisting information pertaining toportal “skins”, portal templates and portlets. In one embodiment, theportal manager can be implemented as a stateless session Enterprise JavaBean™ (EJB). Persistence manager 308 is responsible for persisting thisinformation and providing it to portal manager 306. Persistence manager308 may utilize a relational database management system (RDMBS) 310.

[0026] In one embodiment, a skin can be a collection of files thatincludes a cascading style sheet and a directory of images that definethe look and feel of a portal. Every button, banner, portlet header,background color, and font characteristic can be determined by a skin.In one embodiment, a portal can be associated with more than one user orportal group. A user group can be any arbitrary collection of users thatis determined statically, or dynamically by evaluating rules that takeinto account information about a user and other information. A portalhas a default skin that can be customized for a group. In this way, agroup can define its own look and feel for a particular portal page. Thegroup skin can be further customized to suit the needs of individualusers. Skin information can be cached in server 302 so that it may beused by other JSP's invoked by portal.jsp during rendering of the portalpage.

[0027] Another piece of information retrieved by portal.jsp 402 viaesp.tld 304 is a template corresponding to each portal page. As withskins, a template can be customized. In one embodiment, customization ofa template involves the layout or placement of portal elements (e.g.,portlets, static data, dynamic data, header, footer, content, etc.) onthe template. A template can be afforded an arbitrary number of levelsof customization. In another embodiment, a template can have threelevels of customization: global, group and user. An initial template iscreated for a portal page at the global level. This is the defaulttemplate used for describing the portal page if there are no furthercustomizations. Customizations at the group level supersede the globallevel template. Likewise, customizations at the user level takeprecedence over the group and global levels.

[0028] As part of retrieving the template, portal manager 306 bindsportlets to template placeholders. In doing so, portal manager 306utilizes access controller 312 to determine capabilities or permissions(e.g., whether the given portal user is entitled to execute, view oredit the portlet in question) based on one or more entitlements. Anentitlement is a rule that grants or denies access to a resourcecapability. In one embodiment, a resource can be any resource availableon a computer network, including but not limited to a portlet, a portletGUI component, a portal page, portlet content, etc. In one embodiment,evaluation of an entitlement consists of dynamically associating roleswith a user based on role rules that take into account information aboutthe user, information about the user's communication session, or thecurrent state of the system. For example:

[0029] (1) When all of these conditions apply, the user is a GoldMember:

[0030] Checking account balance>$5,000

[0031] Combined account balance>$50,000

[0032] In rule (1) above, a user is deemed a GoldMember if there is morethan $5,000 in their checking account and they have more than $50,000 intheir combined accounts. Certain portlets, for example, may only be forGoldMember users. By way of a non-limiting example, if only GoldMemberusers were entitled to view the portlet in question, the portlet wouldnot be bound to a template for non-GoldMember users. Similarly, if theentitlement was for editing, then the portlet would be bound to thetemplate and would be visible to a user, however only GoldMember userswould be allowed to edit the portlet's contents. Access controller 312directs role mapper 314 to determine which roles correspond to client300. Access controller 312 then directs decision module 316 to determinewhether or not access to a resource should be allowed based onentitlements corresponding to the roles.

[0033] The final piece of information portal.jsp 302 needs in order torender the portal is the currently selected portal page tab 100-104.This determines which portal page template to use initially, since eachportal page is described by a template and each tab corresponds to aunique portal page. After obtaining this preliminary information, asshown in FIG. 4, portal.jsp 402 uses a JSP include directive to invokeheader.jsp 404. header.jsp 404 renders a standard header which is thesame for each page in the portal. The header could be a navigation pane,for example, allowing a user to jump to different areas of the portal.It could also provide a standard graphic design element to unify pageswithin the portal. Next, portal.jsp 402 invokes PortalPageHeader.jsp406. PortalPageHeader.jsp 406 renders tabs 100-104 based on the numberof portal page templates retrieved. Next, portal.jsp 402 invokesPortalPageContent.jsp 408 to render the selected portal page. Aplaceholder defines regions of the template wherein a portlet candisplay itself, or wherein other static or dynamic content can berendered. In one embodiment, PortalPageContent.jsp 408 is responsiblefor rendering the page elements corresponding to each placeholder. Ifthe placeholder hosts a portlet, PortalPageContent.jsp 408 invokesportlet.jsp 410.

[0034]FIG. 5 is diagram of a portlet rendering system and method inaccordance to one embodiment of the invention. In one embodiment by wayof example, portlet.jsp 410 invokes Titlebar.jsp 500 which, in turn,renders the portlet's window title bar. The title bar might displayicons that, when selected, allow a user to edit the portlet's contents216, detach the portlet such that it occupies a window independent fromthe web browser's main window 214, or remove the portlet 218 (i.e.,close its window). Titlebar.jsp 500 can access entitlement informationvia esp.tld 304 in deciding whether or not these icons are present oractive. portlet.jsp 410 invokes Banner.jsp 502 to render a banner in alike manner to that of the portal page. portlet.jsp 410 invokesheader.jsp 504 and footer.jsp 508 to render the header and footerportions of the portlet window. Portlet content generation (e.g., stockquotes) begins when portlet.jsp 410 invokes content.jsp 506 to initiateportlet execution (e.g., by making a JSP tag library call).

[0035]FIG. 6 is an XML portlet document in accordance to one embodimentof the invention. XML is a standard markup language that combines ageneric syntax with human-readable tags to represent any kind of data.In one embodiment, there is no XML “document” per se. Rather, the XMLdescription of portlet attributes can exist as a one or more streams ofbytes or data sent between applications, objects and devices. In anotherembodiment, an XML document can exist as a physical file in a computerfile system. Generally speaking, an XML document is self-descriptive andconsists of one or more elements. An element has content or informationwhich is delimited by a start tag and an end tag. Start tags begin with“<” and end with “>”. However, end tags begin with “</” and end with“>”. For example: <company> BEA Systems, Inc. </company>

[0036] In this example, the company element has a start tag “<company>”,an end tag “</company>” and the content “BEA Systems, Inc.” An elementcan also be empty. In this case, the element consists of a single tagthat begins with “<” and ends with “/>”.

[0037] XML does not have a fixed set of tags. Rather, each applicationcan define its own tags with their own meaning. In one embodiment by wayof illustration, Table 1 enumerates tags that can be used to describeportlet attributes. Although some tag names indicate that their contentconsists of a uniform resource locator (URL), in another embodiment thecontent could be any identifier that specifies the location of aresource on a network such as the Internet. A Boolean or flag valueindicates a state of true or false. A string is a sequence ofcharacters. TABLE 1 Portlet XML Tag Definitions XML Tag Data TypeDescription Portlet-name String having up to A string that serves toidentify 254 characters. the portlet JSP. Description String having upto This is a simple description of 254 characters. the portlet'scapabilities. weblflow-filename String. The name of a file whichcontains webflow information. This information can be used to drive webpage navigation processing on a server. content-url String. The URL tothe content area JSP. Header-url String. The URL to the header area JSP.alternate-header-url String. The URL to the header that should be usedby default when the page is maximized. Footer-url String. The URL to thefooter area JSP. alternate-footer-url String. The URL to the footer usedfor maximized state. titlebar-url String. The URL to the default titlebar JSP. Banner-url String. The URL to the banner are JSP. editableBoolean. Whether the portlet content will be editable by a user.Edit-url String. The URL to a portlet editor JSP that is invoked if theedit icon 216 is selected. helpable Boolean. Whether there is onlinehelp available for this portlet. help-url String. The URL to the portlethelp JSP that is invoked if the help icon 200 is selected. icon-urlString. The URL to the image for titlebar icon 202. minimizable Boolean.Whether this portlet can be minimized by a user. maximizable Boolean.Whether this portlet can be maximized by a user. maximize-url String.The URL to the maximized body JSP. mandatory Boolean. Whether thisportlet must can be removed by a user (icon 218). moveable Boolean.Whether or not a user can move the portlet when customizing a portalpage. floatable Boolean. Whether this portlet can be opened as afloating window (icon 214). Default-minimized Boolean. Whether thisportlet appears minimized by default. login-required Boolean. Whetherthis portlet requires a user to login prior to having access to theportlet.

[0038]FIG. 7 is an XSD in accordance to one embodiment of the invention.By way of illustration, an XSD can be used to validate the data in anXML document by defining data type constraints for each element of datain an XML document. Table 1 summarizes this information in the “DataType” column. XSD elements are defined in XML. Elements are declaredusing the “xsd: element” tag which has name and data type attributescorresponding to an element in an XML document. For example, thefollowing XSD code fragment declares a “portlet” element as a sequenceof other elements, namely “portlet-name” and “description”: <xsd:element name = “portlet”> <xsd: complexType> <xsd: sequence> <xsd:element name=“portlet-name” type=“string254”/> <xsd: elementname=“description” type=“string254”/> </xsd: sequence> </xsd:complexType> </xsd: element>

[0039] This fragment could be used to validate an XML document thatdescribed a portlet, for example. Both portlet-name and description havea data type of string254 and since they occur in a sequence, an XMLdocument being validated by this code fragment must also haveportlet-name and description in the same order and with the same datatypes.

[0040] One embodiment may be implemented using a conventional generalpurpose or a specialized digital computer or microprocessor programmedaccording to the teachings of the present disclosure, as will beapparent to those skilled in the computer art. Appropriate softwarecoding can readily be prepared by skilled programmers based on theteachings of the present disclosure, as will be apparent to thoseskilled in the software art. The invention may also be implemented bythe preparation of integrated circuits or by interconnecting anappropriate network of conventional component circuits, as will bereadily apparent to those skilled in the art.

[0041] One embodiment includes a computer program product which is astorage medium (media) having instructions stored thereon/in which canbe used to program a computer to perform any of the features presentedherein. The storage medium can include, but is not limited to, any typeof disk including floppy disks, optical discs, DVD, CD-ROMs, microdrive,and magneto-optical disks, ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, DRAMs, VRAMs,flash memory devices, magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (includingmolecular memory ICs), or any type of media or device suitable forstoring instructions and/or data.

[0042] Stored on any one of the computer readable medium (media), thepresent invention includes software for controlling both the hardware ofthe general purpose/specialized computer or microprocessor, and forenabling the computer or microprocessor to interact with a human user orother mechanism utilizing the results of the present invention. Suchsoftware may include, but is not limited to, device drivers, operatingsystems, and user applications.

[0043] The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments of thepresent invention has been provided for the purposes of illustration anddescription. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit theinvention to the precise forms disclosed. Many modifications andvariations will be apparent to the practitioner skilled in the art.Embodiments were chosen and described in order to best describe theprinciples of the invention and its practical application, therebyenabling others skilled in the art to understand the invention, thevarious embodiments and with various modifications that are suited tothe particular use contemplated. It is intended that the scope of theinvention be defined by the following claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. An Extensible Markup Language (XML) documentadapted to describe a portlet, comprising: a name element including aname tag; a description element including a description tag; and acontent resource element including a content tag.
 2. The document ofclaim 1, further comprising: a header resource element including aheader tag.
 3. The document of claim 1, further comprising: an alternateheader resource element including an alternate header tag.
 4. Thedocument of claim 1, further comprising: a footer resource elementincluding a footer tag.
 5. The document of claim 1, further comprising:an alternate footer resource element including an alternate footer tag.6. The document of claim 1, further comprising: a title bar resourceelement including a title bar tag.
 7. The document of claim 1, furthercomprising: a banner resource element including a banner tag.
 8. Thedocument of claim 1, further comprising: an editable element includingan editable tag; and an editor resource element including an editor tag.9. The document of claim 1, further comprising: a helpable elementincluding a helpable tag; and a help resource element including a helptag.
 10. The document of claim 1, further comprising: an icon resourceelement including an icon tag.
 11. The document of claim 1, furthercomprising: a minimizable element including a minimizable tag.
 12. Thedocument of claim 1, further comprising: a maximizable element includinga maximizable tag.
 13. The document of claim 1, further comprising: amaximize element including a maximize tag.
 14. The document of claim 1,further comprising: a mandatory element including a mandatory tag. 15.The document of claim 1, further comprising: a moveable elementincluding a movable tag.
 16. The document of claim 1, furthercomprising: a floatable element including a floatable tag.
 17. Thedocument of claim 1, further comprising: a default-minimized elementincluding a default-minimized tag.
 18. The document of claim 1, furthercomprising: a login-required tag and a login-required element.
 19. Thedocument of claim 1, further comprising: a webflow-filename elementincluding a webflow-filename tag
 20. The document of claim 1 wherein: atag can be empty.
 21. An Extensible Markup Language (XML) documentadapted to describe a portlet, comprising: identification information;rendering information; and wherein the rendering information describesone or more resources that comprise a hierarchy of interdependentrendering functions.
 22. The document of claim 21 wherein: theidentification information includes at least one of a portlet nameelement and a portlet description element.
 23. The document of claim 21wherein: the rendering information includes at least one of a headerresource element, an alternate header resource element, a footerresource element, an alternate footer resource element, a title barresource element, a banner resource element, an editor resource element,a help resource element, a weblfow filename element and an icon resourceelement.
 24. The document of claim 21, further comprising: stateinformation.
 25. The document of claim 24 wherein: the state informationincludes a default minimized element.
 26. The document of claim 21,further comprising: attribute information
 27. The document of claim 26wherein: the attribute information includes at least one of an editableflag element, helpable flag element, minimizable flag element,maximizable flag element, mandatory flag element, movable flag elementand a login required flag element.
 28. A machine readable medium havinginstructions stored thereon that when executed by a processor cause asystem to: generate identification information for an XML document;generate rendering information for the XML document; and wherein therendering information describes one or more resources that comprise ahierarchy of interdependent rendering functions.
 29. The machinereadable medium of claim 28 wherein: the identification informationincludes at least one of a portlet name element and a portletdescription element.
 30. The machine readable medium of claim 28wherein: the rendering information includes at least one of a headerresource element, an alternate header resource element, a footerresource element, an alternate footer resource element, a title barresource element, a banner resource element, an editor resource element,a help resource element, a webflow filename and an icon resourceelement.
 31. The machine readable medium of claim 28, further comprisinginstructions that when executed cause the system to: generate stateinformation for the XML document.
 32. The machine readable medium ofclaim 31 wherein: the state information includes a default minimizedflag element.
 33. The machine readable medium of claim 28, furthercomprising instructions that when executed cause the system to: generateattribute information for the XML document.
 34. The machine readablemedium of claim 33 wherein: the attribute information includes at leastone of an editable flag element, helpable flag element, minimizable flagelement, maximizable flag element, mandatory flag element, movable flagelement and a login required flag element.
 35. A schema adapted todescribe portlet information, comprising: identification information;rendering information; and wherein the rendering information describesone or more resources that comprise a hierarchy of interdependentrendering functions.
 36. The document of claim 35 wherein: theidentification information includes at least one of a portlet nameelement and a portlet description element.
 37. The document of claim 35wherein: the rendering information includes at least one of a headerresource element, an alternate header resource element, a footerresource element, an alternate footer resource element, a title barresource element, a banner resource element, an editor resource element,a help resource element, a webflow filename and an icon resourceelement.
 38. The document of claim 35, further comprising: stateinformation.
 39. The document of claim 38 wherein: the state informationincludes a default minimized element.
 40. The document of claim 35,further comprising: attribute information
 41. The document of claim 40wherein: the attribute information includes at least one of an editableflag element, helpable flag element, minimizable flag element,maximizable flag element, mandatory flag element, movable flag elementand a login required flag element.
 42. The document of claim 37 wherein:the rendering elements have a data type of string.
 43. The document ofclaim 41 wherein: the attribute information elements have a data type ofBoolean.